milk

Bechamel sauce

Bechamel-sauce
Many recipes will tell you to use hot milk when making a bechamel sauce. In fact, I don’t know of anybody who does. Do try not to use milk that has come straight from the refrigerator.

50g butter
50g milk
600ml milk

Melt butter in a saucepan and add the butter. Stir to combine. Cook the roux over gentle heat to cook the flour. Remove the saucepan from the heat and add a little of the milk. Stir well, pressing any lumps out with the spoon. Add a little more milk and repeat. You must eliminate the lumps before returning the pan to the heat. When the mixture is smooth, return to heat and cook until it thickens. Remove from heat again and add more milk. Stir vigorously until the sauce is again smooth. If any lumps are left in the sauce in its early stages, they will be almost impossible to remove later. Remember that it is the addition of a cold liquid to a hot base that causes the lumps to form, so the saucepan must always be off the stove when the milk is added. Continue to stir until there are no lumps, add more milk then cook until the sauce reaches the desired consistency. Season with salt and pepper if desired.

Sauce Creme
Sauce Crème is a white sauce made using some cream to replace some of the milk. Obviously it is richer than béchamel sauce.

(Photo: Heraldsun.com.au)

White sauces

White sauce is the generic name for a whole collection of sauces having one thing in common: they are based on a roux of equal weights of butter and flour. They are called white sauces because the roux is not coloured and the resulting sauce remains white. It is the liquid that usually varies in white sauces. Technically, the sauce we know as white sauce is actually bechamel sauce, the liquid used being milk. With all white sauces the proportions are 50g butter, 50g flour and 600ml liquid to give 600ml of sauce. In all white sauces it is important to fry the roux gently to ‘cook’ the flour. This breaks up the gluten content of the flour and ensures that the resulting sauce does not have a floury taste that no amount of cooking will remove later.  

Eggs Florentine (Authentic)

Eggs Florentine (Traditional)

This recipe, like Eggs Benedict, is constantly being bastardised. Eggs Florentine, or more correctly, Oeufs poches florentine, is a creation of Auguste Escoffier, the father of modern French cuisine. It does not use hollandaise sauce, but bechamel sauce to coat the poached eggs. Escoffier did his Eggs Florentine as a sort of communal dish, containing up to 8 poached eggs. I think everybody nowadays would prefer their Eggs Florentine served in individual ramekins, or perhaps two poached eggs in cocotte dishes. The quantities here are Escoffier’s and, are very vague as all his receipts (yes, receipts) are.

250g spinach
6 – 8 poached eggs
Bechamel sauce
1 – 2 egg yolks
Grated cheese (I would use Gruyere or Parmesan)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper (presumably)

Cook the spinach in boiling salted water and drain thoroughly. Chop and return to the pan with a little butter. Cook for a few minutes, then turn into a fireproof dish. (I think I would wilt the spinach in a little butter, drain off the water released by the spinach, then transfer the spinach to a fine sieve. Press down on the spinach to release as much water as possible, then divide the spinach among the individual ramekins or cocotte dishes.)

Preheat the griller to hot.

Arrange the eggs on top of the spinach. These can be eggs poached in advance and reheated just before using.

Add 1 or 2 egg yolks to the standard bechamel sauce to prevent it turning under the griller, then coat the reheated and well-drained eggs with the sauce.

Sprinkle with grated cheese, add a little melted butter and brown lightly under the griller before serving.

(You could add the cheese to the white sauce, stirring well to melt it, and then coat the eggs with what would now be a mornay sauce. Brown lightly under the griller before serving.)

Serves 3 – 4 in cocotte dishes, 6 – 8 in ramekins.

(Photo from Delicious.co.uk)